Decay
by Lyn Piton
Summary: Drabble. Companion to "Learning Curve." It had to be his mind’s fault. His hands, after all, had never failed him.


_**Disclaimer:** The world of Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, et al. The point of view is my own._

_**A/N:** This is a companion to "Learning Curve;" a look at the situation from Severus's POV. Those of you waiting on FRU, consider this a panacea of sortsmy health took a down-turn and the next chapter will probably still be another week or so in coming. Piton_

**

Decay

**

_

The physical process by which a sound gradually disappears from the audible spectrum until it no longer exists. Simply put, decay is the time that it takes for a note to die away once the musician has stopped producing the sound. The sound waves dissipate in much the same manner as waves produced by tossing a stone in a pond. Decay is a basic component of how a sound is defined.

_

_

Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary

_

No one understands his tirades, himself least of all. His anger, the noise and the spit, combine as the countermelody turned dominant, like an untalented orchestra where the plodding 'celli and shrill violins smother the plaintive whisper of the flute.

Growing up, he had endured lessons on the pianoforte, as any well-schooled five-year-old inhabiting the wizarding world should. "You have a pianist's hands," the teacher would exclaim, over and over each lesson as if discovering anew, as if she had not agreed to teach him for precisely this reason. His eyes would track the black splashed across the page, attempting idioms in a language in which he could not converse. One day, in youthful impatience, he performed the framework of each song, bare bones without cartilage to hold them together.

"But Severus," the teacher had said, her thin, wavering voice a sad contrast to the sounds she created outside herself. "You have eliminated the melody." Her gaze pinned itself to him like a showy label inside a shirt, scratchy, uncomfortable, unwelcome.

Without apology, he began again, his mind screaming that he had _intended_ to eliminate the melody, that the mathematics of the piece was entirely more logical without it, and why did everyone want to hear the same thing again anyway?

It was during his teacher's praise afterward that he first felt contempt.

oOoOoOo

It would be years, decades, before he would understand the value of melody, be able to see beauty in its illogical emotions, its humanity. In those years his eyes had turned from the piano to the book and the wand, from harmony to the dissonance engendered by a fellowship of hatred. By then his pianist's hands were marred, stained with blood and potions ingredients, stiff with tension and shame.

It had to be his mind's fault. His hands, after all, had never failed him.

His voice, then, became his instrument, though he still eliminated the melody, no longer out of contempt, but fear. Without a tune, the story cannot be told, and the audience will not comprehend; except Dumbledore, who uses his heart to hear the symphonies awaiting composition.

In the safety of his logic he had forgotten that all acts need practice, and he railed his two-chord progressions to the world as the melody withered, until one day he woke and remembered nothing but smoke and mirrors.

No one understands his tirades, himself least of all, and while his voice is hollower now, there is little audience remaining to remark upon the change.

So the years pass, washing over his heart until it erodes the chambers, leaving shallow plains where great fjords once prevailed. He tries to convince himself he is relieved, that his anger is for what he has, not what he has lost.

But then she comes, energy and life and curiosity that he almost remembers, so close he can touch them, brush them with the very tips of his fingers before remembrance takes flight. His chorus of deflection sustains a frantic crescendo, but he knows it will not deter her.

He tries to believe that he wishes it would.

She hears with her eyes and breathes with her mind, and he knows, sooner than later, she will want answers. He waits for the question, holding his breath until faint strains of a tune long lost climb through his chest, wafting words he didn't craft out of his closed throat.

The song ends before it begins, and he exits, equally afraid of speech and silence.

* * *

_Reviews are always appreciated._


End file.
